But even the longest journey ends at last, and the exit was clearly marked SECTION HOSPITAL, with the same red cross on white that Spacers used.
The anteroom smelled of antiseptic and was mobbed with men, women, and children. Children. thought Derec vaguely -never seen so many children in my life as on Earth.Though his memories still were lost, he was sure, by his astonished reaction, that he had not. Of course, they had to keep replacing this huge population.
Fumbling, he inserted Ariel’s newly forged ID tags into the computer, whose panel lit with CHECK-UP, ILLNESS, EMERGENCY? Ariel was leaning against him, gasping and pale after the ordeal, and even the usually unconcerned Earthers were looking at them in some alarm. Emergency, he decided, panicky, and punched it.
Instantly a red star appeared in the panel, blinking; apparently alarms rang elsewhere, for a strong-looking woman appeared, started to remonstrate with him for mistaking an ILLNESS for an EMERGENCY-young husbands! But Ariel turned a ghastly, apologetic smile on her, and the woman’s mouth closed with a snap.
“Here!”
She half carried Ariel past three rooms full of still more waiting Earthers, to a room with a wheeled, knee-high cart in it.
“Lie down, baby!”
The gurney stood up, she strapped Ariel on, and an older woman entered. “Dr. Li-”
“Mmm. I see.” She began to check over Ariel, not bothering with instruments-she took Ariel’s temperature by placing her hand on Ariel’s head!
A harassed-looking man entered. He wore a curious ornament in the form of a frame holding glass panes in front of his eyes. Derec had noticed some of these on the ways. It gave his face a dashing, futuristic look. “What is it, Dr. Li?”
“Don’t know yet, Dr. Powell. Elevated temperature, febrile heartbeat, hectic flush, exhaustion. I want to measure everything first, of course.” She reached to the bottom of the gurney and started pulling out instruments, to Derec’s considerable relief. Ariel had closed her eyes, and seemed to be asleep.
The doctors bent over her, shaking their heads and measuring everything about Ariel. Tense as he was, Derec looked about for a place to sit, content for the moment to leave it in their hands. Abruptly the nurse said. “How long has it been since she’s eaten?”
The doctors ignored this till Derec said, “Uh-yesterday afternoon. Not long after noon.”
Dr. Li grunted, and Dr. Powell said, “Inanition!”
“Young as she is, that shouldn’t have brought on this collapse. Feel that arm. She’s practically starving.” The three of them looked at each other, plainly shocked.
“Why hasn’t she been eating, young man?” Dr. Li demanded.
“She hasn’t felt like it, Ma’am,” said Derec, and all three of them frowned at his accent.
“Settler prospects, eh?” Powell removed his frame and wiped the panes with a tissue. “You’ll not have much need of Spacer talk on a frontier planet. Better to learn some good medieval jargon: brush, creek, log cabin. Not to mention ‘sweat.’ What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know, Doctor. She said,” he gulped, “it could be fatal if it crossed the blood-brain barrier. It’s-it’s affecting her mind. She’s had th-this low-level fever and lethargy, with occasional muscular aches and pains, for a long time.”
“Vomiting? Night sweats?” asked Dr. Li tensely.
“I don’t know. She-she didn’t want to worry me.”
They looked outraged; he should know.
“There’s a number of things it could be,” said Dr. Li unhappily. “I have a few ideas, though-”
“So do I!” said Dr. Powell sourly. “Look here, young fella, I don’t doubt that accent caused you many a pain, but you’d better doff it in here. It antagonizes too many people.”
“He can’t,” said Dr. Li expressionlessly. “He’s a real Spacer.”
Dr. Powell and the nurse goggled. “Impossible! A Spacer running around on Earth? He’d drop down dead of -”
The doctors whirled to look at Ariel. Frowning, the nurse stepped out. “It could be any of a hundred common and harmless diseases!” said Dr. Powell.
“Yes! Harmless to Earth people!”
“How about yourself, young man? Do you feel all right?”
Derec nodded. “Never better.”
“Why, then?” Dr. Powell exploded. “You should be sick a dozen times over!”
“I’ve been given a prophylactic regimen-so has Ariel,” said Derec, hoping they wouldn’t ask too many questions. “I don’t know too much about it.”
“Apparently it didn’t take in her case,” said Dr. Li somberly. “You let us know the moment you feel unwell, young man.”
“They can’t be Spacers,” said the nurse grimly, holding Ariel’s ID tag in her hand. “How could they be, and travel around Earth? Without ration cards, ID, and so on? This is perfectly ordinary Earth ID, City of St. Louis-”
They looked at him, frowning harder, and Derec felt himself hot…not to mention sweating. “That’s all arranged, sir. It’s part of a trade agreement…we’re doing sociological research…”
“So young?”
“Who notices a kid?” he countered swiftly, feeling the hair clammy against his forehead. “Young eyes see more sharply…and so on.”
“Hummph! No child of mine would take such a risk-”
“Maybe we’d better query the Terries,” said Dr. Li reluctantly.
They all looked concerned.
Derec questioned them with his eyes, but finally had to break down and ask. “The who?”
“The Terries-Terrestrial Bureau of Investigation,” said Dr. Powell. He polished his panes unhappily.
“They cause more trouble than-” muttered the nurse.
“Still, best to take no chances. If the girl is in a bad way, it could cause trouble with the Spacers-there’s enough bad blood between us already.”
Derec thought swiftly, appalled. The “Terries” would find no record of them, would query whatever Spacer representation there might be on Earth, find no record there, and the reactor would flash over. But he couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“Look-”
Ariel moaned and turned partly on her side; only the straps kept her from falling. If she’d been listening, she couldn’t have timed it better. All three Earthers leaped to her, and Derec pocketed the ID tag the nurse had put down.
He thought quickly. The doctors were concerned and totally focused on Ariel. Derec looked around. As he recalled R. David’s work, the ID tag merely gave name and ID workup. Not address. Medical care was on an as-needed basis, not rationed, so nobody cared about place of residence, and in fact they hadn’t been required to enter that. (Or was that because Ariel’s tag gave her rating as Transient? He needed to know a lot more about Earth.)
In any case, he thought, the only thing they knew about Ariel was what the computer recorded from the ID tag.
Leaving them working over her, he slipped out and strolled around, speaking to no one, trying to look like a worried, expectant father pretending to be nonchalant. A couple of people looked at him sympathetically, but most didn’t seem to notice him at all, for which he was grateful.
There it was. An office. He slipped in, looked at the terminal. It was probably dedicated to a single function, but he could try. He had watched R. David coding ID tags of a dozen kinds, and had a good grasp of what was implied. And frankly, these computers were simple after programming positronic brains and restructuring the programming of the central computer of Robot City. It took him a mere half hour to get through the programming, retrieve the record on Ariel, and erase it.
Now let’s hope there isn’t a backup memory somewhere,he thought gloomily.
They caught up with him in the interior waiting room, standing aimlessly about and unobstrusively slipping toward the outer waiting room, where he supposed he belonged.
“There you are,” said the nurse. For the first time, he noted that her jacket had a name label imprinted Korolenko, J. “Why didn’t you wait in the Friends’ Lounge?”